them. Why had she given it up? “I really don’t think I knew who I was any more,” she told Carl, “and I wanted to find out.” She spent the rest of her life finding out, and the discovery bore dividends. Instead of perpetually assuming other identities through her work, the real Joan Crawford emerged from the shadows—generous to friends in every way possible, lavish to charities and never a burden to anyone, even when she was mortally ill. When she learned, for example, that her former Los Angeles assistant, Betty Barker, was bringing a few relatives and friends to Manhattan for their first
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